Between them, three businessmen own some of the most popular and thriving businesses in the sought-after market town of Narberth in Pembrokeshire.
But it's not just business which unites Oli Cook, Andrew Rees and Jonathan Williams - all three men have been touched by struggle and loss which have come to define them. Oli was banned from Pembrokeshire by police, Johnathan struggled through the death of his mum while Andrew tragically lost his wife through suicide in 2021.
Their latest business venture - a café called Stopio - is less a business and more about giving back to the community which has supported them through their unimaginable tragedies. And as they sit in Stopio's garden chatting about their challenges, laughing and crying together, it's clear they've tapped into something that is still so hard to talk about. "You feel like you're in this private club and it's a club you don't want to be in, but you open up to people who've been through the same and you're comfortable talking to them," said Andrew about his own grief.
It's especially important for men, who are notoriously bad at talking about their feelings and mental health, all three agree.
Oli has plans to launch bike hire from the café, Andrew wants to see a pie club and Jonathan will go along with whatever they want. It will be more than a café - the bright and airy, wooden-clad space is a blank canvas for whatever and wherever the fancy takes them. All three men have a love for cycling and that influence isn't hard to see - there's a bike rack outside, cycling kit on the shelves and a Sipple bottle refill station on the wall.
But with an all-singing all-dancing kitchen installed with plans for Andrew's pie club in mind as well as for turning out homemade cakes and muffins every day, the possibilities are endless. There's a quiet space off the main café where they hope counselling groups will meet and which local groups will use for things like a book club. And outside, there's table tennis set up in a safe space for kids to hang out as well as a second kitchen for barbeques and events.
Oli Cook, a successful project manager who's worked on projects for Costa and national pub chains, took on Stopio by accident. He'd been working on the building on behalf of a friend who thought they were going to have to move out of their successful restaurant, but when that was no longer on the cards, Oli found himself in charge.
He's loud, he's funny, he's a joker; but that doesn't mean he hasn't had to overcome his own problems in life. After a period of taking drugs and an altercation that saw him banned from his home county for six months, Oli finally sobered up when he had a stroke aged 45. That and the death of one of his good friend's son - Gryff Morgan - really made an impact. You can read Gryff's story here.
The larger than life character is well-known in Narberth - if not for his sporting prowess being a very handy cricket and rugby player, then for his project management business. His softer side is perhaps less well known.
"There's nowhere for kids to hang out that isn't drink-orientated," he said. "I wanted to create a space where they can hang out." Oli knows how easy it is to fall into making the wrong decision: "I've had lots of issues," admitted Oli, who has a son and two step children. "I did everything at 100mph, the police banned me from Pembrokeshire for six months, I wasn't allowed to see my child and it got to me, I have attempted suicide, I did drugs - everything apart from heroin." He managed to do all this alongside working and earning "good money". He said: "I was able to function on that which was quite scary really."
He could have fallen - he was looking at two years in prison on a harassment charge - and yet he didn't. People who knew him looked out for him and helped pick him up, he said. He spent a period in hospital getting help for his mental state and a local policeman who also happened to be a family friend advised him to "keep his head down" in the neighbouring county during his ban. "He told me to just run with it and it would be better for me in the long term," he said, adding the alternative was two years inside. "Narberth helped me and now I can help back." He also credits his turnaround to his now-wife Claire, who he married 10 years ago: "She has been my rock to throughout getting to where I am today," he said.
He would be able to recognise if there was someone hanging around who had "too much of an influence" on youngsters he said, because he knows the signs. "So maybe I could come in and stop and help that person," he shrugged.
"The stroke scared me and I thought I was going to die. I didn't want to because I thought I had more to give, I just thought it was a bit of a waste."
Jonathan, 52, owns the florist in Narberth as well as the Costcutter shop on the high street and a garage on the edge of town. A well-known face in the town, he was floored by the death of his mum after she went into hospital with long Covid and never made it out alive.
"I was quite work orientated," he admitted. "It was just work, work, work." He missed the signs of his wife's post natal depression after the birth of their second child 13 years ago, he added. "I never really understood it and she struggled," he said. "I couldn't understand how to help her or what she was going through."
When the pandemic struck, it was "all hands on deck" as the family business was overwhelmed by people shopping locally. "It was 12 hour days trying to get through the day," Jonathan said. Business boomed during the lockdown and he enjoyed the community coming back together. But toward the end, his mum, who was still working flat out in her seventies, became ill. She tested positive for Covid but didn't seem to get any better. Doctors diagnosed long Covid but three months she was still struggling and went into hospital. "She passed away in a week," he said. She had a fall and suffered a bleed on the brain.
"Mum was the rock of our family," he continued. "When she died it hit us all. I didn't really realise how it would hit me. I couldn't sleep and I just carried on working. I went back to work the next day after mum died.
"Mum worked with my sister in the flower shop and I used to walk down the street and look in and see right through the shop to the back and I'd see her working every day. In the end, I found myself not looking. I didn't want to look and not see her. Three months later I just fell apart for a couple of weeks."
He didn't sleep for five days straight: "My wife told me I couldn't carry on like that," Johnathan said. "She said you've got to go and see the doctor. He was amazing- the first thing he said to me was: 'I just want to say well done, do you realise how hard it is for men to come in and ask for help?'. I did get some help."
People were "amazing" after his mum died, he said. "It makes you think. Even sending a card or a bunch of flowers can make such a difference. I own a flower shop so that's even easy for me to do. But until you lose someone like that it does make you think about life differently."
Andrew - the man behind the award-winning Andrew Rees butchers in town - had planned to step back from the business which had consumed much of his life since his early-twenties when he was blindsided by the death of his wife Janice on March 23, 2021.
"I focused solely on the business through the nineties and the 2000s," he said. "I got married and we had two boys and I thought life was great and it was going to carry on. My life was ticking along very nicely."
Andrew, 57, is a stalwart of Narberth. The chair of the chamber of trade and the man behind the development of the old primary school into a thriving food and drink venue, he turned to helping grow Narberth as he felt his own business was well-established. "Once my business was settled I thought I wanted to give a little back to the town," he said. "I wanted to make a difference to the town and I started to be more proactive." He was instrumental in the battle to save the old school from the supermarket giants and turning it into a buzzing street food destination - read more about that here.
It was with the support of his wife, Janice, that he took on the "dilapidated" old school and after a lengthy process he was awarded the project in January 2018. Work started in February 2021 to build Hwb as well as additional retail units and flats: "That was a proud day for me," he said. "That's when I came across Oli first. I knew he was a very good project manager and I needed one." Their business relationship developed into one of friendship too.
"But in between all that my life changed," Andrew continued. "My world was turned upside down in March last year." Janice, a specialist in infection control at Withybush Hospital, took her own life the day after organising a birthday party for Andrew. He found her the following day.
"I thought I had my life all mapped out: I was going to work hard and then in a couple of years down the line take a step back. Janice was a wonderful nurse, high up in her profession, and it was coming up to our time to enjoy it all and what we'd worked for. But all that turned upside down last summer.
"I'm so glad we did Hwb and I'm proud to be part of that. Janice would be so happy and proud about what we did with the school and now Stopio too."
Oli mentioned Stopio to Andrew and he "jumped at the chance". He said: "Two years ago I would've been no way. But your perspective on life changes. I've got empathy now. When I was behind the counter in the butchers, customers would come in every day and you knew very well they'd lost a neighbour or a loved one and you thought you had empathy then. You'd say the right thing and then they would walk out the shop and you'd turn around and be talking about the football with the next customer.
"Now when I hear about people in that position, it hits me a lot harder. It brings your own emotions back."
It was the same for Jonathan, who agreed to invest on a bit of a whim: he'd always fancied opening a bike café in Narberth and when Oli popped up to the garage to get a new car and mentioned what he was doing, Jonathan offered to jump in too. None of them are in it to make their fortunes, that much is clear.
Andrew took another hard knock just a few weeks ago when his mum died suddenly. He can be forgiven for feeling like life is unfair right now: "I find it hard," he admitted. "I loved my mum, she was great and she would've been here at Stopio today.
"But what I've experienced happens to other people every day. I've been surprised how many people have gone through it. I would like to make a difference, like people helped me."
All three hope Stopio will become the centre of the community and all three will happily make the time to stop and talk to anyone who needs it. Everyone who enters the café gets a smile and a hello from the three men. It's the end of the school day when we chat and the outdoor space is bustling with children enjoying milkshakes in the afternoon sunshine. "Listen to the kids and their laughter, that's enough for me," said Oli about what he hopes to achieve with the venture, which opened on May 27.
"We all need support from someone at some point," he continued. "People will put you in a box. People will have seen me as an 18 year old but don't realise you can grow up and be someone else totally different. I've been fortunate to get the help I needed and I'm happy and proud to put something back." It's particularly important for him that people feel like they have a space to come to and share their thoughts and feelings and the memory of Gryff is never far away. Pin badges bearing his name are on the countertop.
Andrew agreed: "Particularly what's gone on in the last few months, I've just been blown away by the support I've had," he said.
Oli added: "If I can stop just one person doing something they shouldn't then that will be enough."
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